Monday, November 28, 2016

Skyfall

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, & Javier Bardem

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In a recent Ultimate Movie Review Twitter Poll, I asked you what your favorite James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig was and you chose Skyfall. For me this was a hard choice, because Daniel Craig seems as though he was born to play James Bond. All the films he's done have been fantastic, but I can see why Skyfall won. This film stands out for many reasons, most importantly it gives us a rare look into the childhood of James Bond and for the rarest of moments we see Bond scared and on the edge of possibly giving up, but you know how the story ends, he's James Bond. If you missed Skyfall, the film is like many other stories, where an old enemy reappears, but in this case, the enemy isn't looking for world domination, he's looking for revenge against his former employers, the British Government and in particular the Double 0 program. Bond films are often times so similar that we tend to rate them based on the villain and the song, well, the song doesn't get better than the gem produced by Adele, but what about Javier Bardem? He is an Academy Award winner and for good cause, this dude was one of the scarier Bond villains to come around in a long time. The others in the Craig Bond movies were some pretty bad guys, who had done some horrible things, but no one was what anyone would call truly scary, not like the villains used to be. Bardem had that special something though, that not only made him a bad guy, but that kind of bad guy that can make audiences cringe. The Bottom Line, Skyfall wasn't my pick, but it was a close second, as this was probably the most personal and emotional Bond film perhaps in the entire series. Daniel Craig is still very much at his best, Javier Bardem is a villain who will always rank in the top ten, and who better to sing a bond theme than Adele. Wheather or not you picked Skyfall, there is no question that it is one of those Bond films that won't ever be forgotten.